“Gender and Family in the Language Services Industry” report from Common Sense Advisory

Issues related to gender, the workplace, and family are among the most important social and political concerns today. Language services – translation, localization, interpreting, and related tasks – are frequently seen as a female-dominated profession, but little data has been available to compare with other industries.

“Gender and Family in the Language Services Industry” is the first in a series of CSA Research reports dealing with gender and family issues among those who are employed in the language industry or who work with language services. It covers high level issues concerning men’s and women’s experience with the workplace and family/work-life balance. Based on 2,200 global responses, the report shines light on topics ranging from pay to personality to promotions.

The data from this research separates perception from reality.

What region of the world has the lowest language services gender pay gap?

Should gender balance be mandatory in the hiring process?

Which gender has experienced discrimination – either positive or negative – based on specific personal characteristics?

Who are more likely to reduce work hours, take time off, quit jobs, or turn down promotions to care for family members?

“Gender and Family in the Language Services Industry,” and subsequent reports, is available for free with registration.

Hinara wrote:I hope Proz doesn't jumping on the bandwagon of PC and Marxism by posting irrelevant articles such as this.

That's what I feared when I read the title, but it seems like a normal survey of men and women in the language industry. I'm not interested enough to sign up to read the full results though.

I was interested to see this question:

"Should gender balance be mandatory in the hiring process?"

Everything I have seen and read about the translation and interpreting industry suggests that women are significantly over-represented. And indeed, looking at the sample, there were 1018 female respondees and 431 male respondees. That is about what I would expect.

In industries where the inverse is true and men dominate (software engineering, for example), the argument has been that this must represent anti-female discrimination of some kind, which has led to strident calls for "equality". If gender balance were to be asserted in our industry, I would think that women would stand to lose a good deal.

So how will it go? Will there be special pleading for the translation and interpreting industry when it comes to gender imbalance, along the lines that it is different because blah, blah and blah (insert the impassioned argument of your choice here), or will the issue quietly be ignored, since it is men that are currently "disadvantaged" by this gender imbalance?

Regards,Dan

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I hope Proz doesn't jumping on the bandwagon of PC and Marxism by posting irrelevant articles such as this.

I'm pretty sure this statement breaks the site's "no politics" rule. As I didn't start the discussion, I'd just like to note that neither Marxist philosophy nor Socialism are perceived as the root of all evil worldwide. Just sayin'....

PS: This doesn't mean that I'm not equally fed up to the back teeth with "gender" issues being shoved down our throats at every opportunity. However, I don't immediately reach for my scattergun and the nearest scapegoat.

[Edited at 2017-09-30 08:15 GMT]

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Being someone who works in the language service industry (as we all do here), I expected the article to be pertinent to my professional work. Every time we do a translation, we must be aware of such things. Do you select the proper "Miss" vs. "Mrs." or do you choose "Ms."? What do you do with a 1940's birth certificate where a child is identified as a bastard? What about same sex marriages and divorces (I did several recently) - what wording is used? I translated an Swiss article recently from German, where I discovered that the female form has become the generic all inclusive form for men and women. "Die Arbeiterin" doesn't mean a female worker, but a male worker is included under that term.

This is the kind of thing I expected to see under this title. As far as gender prejudice is concerned, I'm lucky to have a gender-neutral given name that people guess wrong at least half the time.

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I expected the article to be pertinent to my professional work. Every time we do a translation, we must be aware of such things. (...) What do you do with a 1940's birth certificate where a child is identified as a bastard? What about same sex marriages and divorces (I did several recently) - what wording is used? (...) This is the kind of thing I expected to see under this title.

So did I, and these cross-cultural issues are becoming more interesting and more important as the culture gaps and what I would call ''sensitivity gaps'' increase.

neilmac wrote:

neither Marxist philosophy nor Socialism are perceived as the root of all evil worldwide. Just sayin'....

Also, the issues that contemporary social justice warriors focus on (gender, sexuality etc.) have very, very, very little to do with Marx which is all about 'material left' - class and wealth - and personally I bristle every time I see socialism equalised with the pronoun frenzy.

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Dan Lucas wrote:So how will it go? Will there be special pleading for the translation and interpreting industry when it comes to gender imbalance, along the lines that it is different because blah, blah and blah (insert the impassioned argument of your choice here), or will the issue quietly be ignored, since it is men that are currently "disadvantaged" by this gender imbalance?

The latter, it seems. These "gender imbalance" questions often make me wonder how many persons of the "disadvantaged" gender even want to be in that industry in the first place. Has anyone bothered to check?

[Edited at 2017-10-31 12:17 GMT]

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The discussion is inherently political and has been for decades. In other industries, as I pointed out, a numerical gender imbalance that favors men has come to be seen as something to be righted - I have already mentioned software development. It is noticeable that in translation we have a prime example of an industry in which women appear to be significantly over-represented. Is this good or bad? If it is good, why is an imbalance in other industries seen as undesirable? If it is bad, should we not take be advocating steps to boost the number of men? It's a human issue, correct?

Personally, I believe in equality of opportunity, not equality of outcome, so provided the former exists I am not in favor of measures to artificially impose the latter. So no, I don't actually believe we should push for measures to encourage men specifically to enter translation.

Regards,Dan

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Most of us work freelance. Hiring policies don't figure into this at all. I ended up being given a gender-neutral name and am happy to keep it that way. Clients hire me based on my professional background and the ultimate quality of my work.

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